Canberra, on the other hand, he thinks is too hilly, too hot, car-dominated, too dangerous, too far, too spread out, too expensive to fix, would take too long, paths too narrow and not separated, too much Lycra, not a cycling city.

It's true that Canberra has far to go. Yet other cities are forging ahead despite the difficulties. San Francisco with its hills; London with its car culture; Paris turning urban freeways into parks; Seville with its hot summers and a fivefold increase in cycling.

As Canadian planner Brent Toderian says: "What are the eight most unhelpful words in the English language? `We could never do that in our city!` But successful cities replace excuse for action".

There is hope. North Canberra with good established path networks had over 11 percent cycling to work at the last Census. The challenge is to improve cycling rates in the other town centres. E-bikes are also changing the game.

We applaud the government for the climate change strategy. We look to collective action to reap the collective benefits of more cycling.

The decision to stop the bus service calling at Canberra Railway station is a foolish and potentially dangerous one.

Those needing to travel by bus to the city or beyond now have to walk to the Wentworth Avenue stop regardless of weather or mobility problems, often with heavy cases, crossing both lanes of Wentworth Avenue without pedestrian crossings and at great risk from oncoming traffic. I myself have witnessed near misses.

I urge Transport Canberra to rectify this foolish decision.

Jeremy McKenzie of Gold Creek (Letters, September 21) asks for my suggestions for transport since his bus has been cancelled.

The same thing happened to my lovely bus that used to stop right outside my door. I now have to walk 500 metres to catch it.

In my case, I am happy with the trade-off: a rapid bus from Kippax that runs all day Sundays, instead of the hopeless weekend "service" that we used to have. But for those like Jeremy, who can't cycle 1500 metres to Kippax with its bike cage, we need solutions.

What about on-demand mini-buses? Better facilities for mobility vehicles, including electric scooters? I am 77 and my doctor has promised to tell me when I am too old to drive. Having my licence voluntarily cancelled will make no difference to me, as I rarely drive, anyway.

For people who are not as mobile, we need solutions, and my thanks to Jeremy for pointing this out.

Richard Castles offers, "If Harry doesn't want the job, I'll take it". (September 23, p14). If only! The job of monarch should be open to all applicants every five years and people should vote.

Meanwhile the Windsors are effectively slaves. They are overpaid but are denied the basic human right of being able to define their own lives.

For instance, they have to be members of the Church of England, no matter what their private beliefs may be. They have to live on one tiny, chilly, overcrowded island. They have to endure embarrassingly old-fashioned, silly titles. They shouldn't express political opinions because we have to prevent them reverting to the habits of dictatorship of their ancestors; habits they are quite tempted towards if our suspicions about the destruction of the Whitlam government are correct.

We scrutinize their lives from birth to grave. No wonder Prince Harry and Princess Anne have ensured that their children don't have royal titles.

The royal slaves, though rich, are brainwashed into believing that they are obliged to endure slavery.

The flattery, the titles, the weird clothes and the isolation from real life, all prevent them escaping the servitude and endless unnecessary ceremonies which is all they have ever known.

Your editorial heading on September 23 was "Still questions around cannabis bill".

Utah's Desert News of May 11, 2016, under the heading "Fatal car crashes involving marijuana up in Utah", reported: "According to the Utah Highway Safety Office report, the percentage of fatal crashes involving drivers who tested positive for marijuana increased from six percent to 15 percent between 2012 and 2015".

The report conceded that as detectable traces of marijuana can remain in someone's blood for days or weeks and the majority of those tested positive for THC also tested positive for alcohol or other drugs, it was hard to say whether marijuana caused any of the crashes in the study.

Last Sunday (September 22) I was surprised to find myself attending an information session about the Kingston Apartments Precinct.

"Surprised" because I had decided to attend the session, hosted by the Inner South Canberra Community Council, on the basis that it was a briefing about the Kingston ARTS Precinct.

Sure the proposed precinct delivers much needed spaces for the Canberra Arts community.

However, these spaces, along with such existing facilities as the Glass Works and the Fitters' Workshop, will be shoehorned into a Stalinesque-concentration of additional apartment buildings.

Canberra is known for inspiring vistas: think Kings Avenue, Commonwealth Avenue, the vista between the Australian War Memorial and Parliament House(s), and more recently from the Arboretum.

According to current schematics of the proposed arts precinct development, the existing views from Wentworth Avenue and the lake of heritage structures such as the old Power House (now the Glass Works), will be obscured by a developer-driven concentration of additional apartment buildings.

Apart from the development failing to recognise the heritage aspects associated with the precinct, lost also will be the existing 625 car spaces; barely sufficient to service current users of the precinct, and certainly nowhere near enough when additional arts community tenants, and their visitors occupy the site.

We were told that current flat space parking would be replaced by a structure that would accommodate about 100 fewer vehicles.

Elisabeth Judd, the community liaison consultant to Geocon for this project told the meeting that the Bus Depot Markets, important both for the amenity they provide to Canberrans and as a visitor source to the ACT, are not part of the new development.

Totally overlooked apparently is the obvious impact the development, both in its construction and in its final state, will have on visitor access to the Kingston Bus Depot Markets.

It would seem on the basis of the responses provided by Ms Judd that the Bus Depot Markets are not relevant to the aspirations of the developer and are therefore simply considered to be collateral damage.

Having spelled out the bad news, the good news is the opportunity to influence a good outcome by participating in the community consultation process in which the developer is now engaged.

Already such organisations as the Canberra Historical Society are well advanced in providing their input to this process to protect the heritage values of the precinct. However, broader involvement from the Canberra community is essential.

As highlighted at the meeting by former head of the National Capital Authority, and now registered lobbyist, Gary Rake, what is currently missing from the engagement process is the involvement of younger Canberrans. They will inherit what comes out of it.

One can only heave a sigh of relief that, as your headline (canberratimes.com.au, September 22) says the current APS review is "gender blind".

After decades of preferential treatment for women in legislation (the Equal Employment Opportunity Act) and in numerous policies, APS staff will be treated just as people and not as men or women.

Just as well or the review would need two contrasting and perhaps conflicting policies. The article makes the point that 60 per cent of APS employees are women. We surely need a plan to correct that; 50 per cent must be the right figure.

Then we have the endless policies to increase the proportion of women in the SES. But all the feminists need to do is to wait until the current cohort comes through as it will automatically yield a higher proportion of women in the SES though whether that will improve the outcomes is open to question.

We are in no position to criticise the Indians or the Chinese for pursuing development by using coal. That's what we did. But we should not be facilitating this by selling coal to them or letting them establish coal mines here. We should be helping them do it differently. Why aren't we exporting technical help instead?

While some hundreds of thousands of us around the country were rallying last Friday for action on climate change I wonder where David Littleproud was. At a meeting of the Flat Earth Society perhaps?

Come on The Canberra Times. No more climate change denialist letters. The Conservation is the latest media site to ban all climate denialist commentary. We are in a climate change crisis. No more questioning of climate change science. It is an established fact.

As uncomfortable as it may be for some (J Stirzacker, Letters, September 23) the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report shows lower death rates at higher temperatures. Global warming will bring about an overall reduction in death rates. If there is data to the contrary let it be brought forward.

Aussie billionaire Anthony Pratt opens a paper mill in Ohio, USA. The plant will generate 5000 jobs over the next ten years according to Donald Trump. "How good is that!" says our PM.

How can Mr Morrison promote the value of having a job while in America's mid-west at the opening of a cardboard box factory built by an Australian company; a company promoted by Donald Trump as creating American jobs. What about helping Australian companies to stay here and create Australian jobs?

Trump and Scomo are doing the factory opening publicity while a UN climate change emergency summit is being held virtually next door. "Birds of a feather flock together". And we know what kind of feathers these two have; the reactionary right wing kind.

It's good to learn that our Prime Minister accepts the expertise of space scientists in sending humans to our moon and to Mars. Too bad that Mr Morrison does not do likewise for the expertise of climate scientists who focus on our own planet.

I think it is likely that Saudi Arabia arranged the attacks on its oil facilities itself in order to provide a pretext for going to war with Iran. Why would Iran (like Iraq before it) do anything to risk a military attack by the US?

ACTION's two-hourly weekend bus timetable? It's ACTION for people going nowhere!

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